MassWildlife gives endangered turtles a head start at life

Friday

Thanks to the efforts of MassWildlife, a small population of endangered turtles in Plymouth County is getting a better chance at survival.

Thanks to the efforts of MassWildlife, a small population of endangered turtles in Plymouth County is getting a better chance at survival.

In a process called "headstarting,'' the state agency division gathered about 150 northern red-bellied cooter hatchlings from the wild last fall and distributed them among 17 caretakers ranging from zoos to high schools. The volunteer caretakers raised the turtles in aquariums over the winter in preparation for their release back into the wild this weekend.

Tom French, assistant director of MassWildlife's Natural Heritage and Endangered Species Program, said the aim of headstarting is to help the hatchlings grow to a size that won't be gobbled up by other species. Though adult northern red-bellied cooters are the second largest freshwater turtle species in Massachusetts, measuring up to a foot long, they're only the size of a quarter when they hatch from their eggs.

"Everything can eat them,'' French said. "They're easy to find, easy to catch and they usually get eaten up.''

Headstarting remedies that problem by removing a segment of the population until the turtles have grown to a size that is no longer a meal for predators. Instead of letting those specimens hibernate during the winter as they would in the wild, the caretakers keep them in warm water and feed them, accelerating their growth.

At MassWildlife's field headquarters in Westborough Wednesday, this year's headstarting graduates were weighed a final time in preparation for their release on June 2 into the Great Quittacas and Pocksha Ponds in Middleborough. According to French, several of the turtles had already grown to several times the size of their counterparts in the wild, thanks to a winter of steady feeding.

"The results are actually quite remarkable,'' he said. "Once you get it to this size, nothing can hit it.''

Now in its 24th year, MassWildlife's headstarting project has replenished a turtle population that numbered only 300 across 12 ponds in Plymouth County in the beginning. French said archeological findings have shown the species' original territory stretched from Ipswich to Westborough, but subsequent changes to the landscape - many caused by humans - forced the turtles into their current, much smaller habitat.

Mostly relegated to isolated, glacier-formed ponds, the turtles have no way of accessing other ponds because there are no connecting waterways. Each pond tends to have its own population, which means that when a heron or raccoon decides to feast on a freshly hatched nest of turtles, that population's chances for survival become greatly diminished.

A female northern red-bellied cooter lays about 14 eggs every year, French said, "but almost none of these (hatchlings) make it.''

When MassWildlife collects headstarting specimens in the fall, the remaining 80 percent "we see almost none of ever again,'' he added.

Populations of the turtles are already extinct at several of the ponds in the region and the entire Massachusetts population has earned the distinction of a federally endangered species.

In response, MassWildlife has attempted to reintroduce the species into larger and less isolated bodies of water, especially the Great Quittacas and Pocksha Ponds, which are just a few miles from the turtles' original habitat.

Though the program has had success - the organization's efforts have translated into the release of nearly 3,000 turtles since the project's inception - French admitted that headstarting has its share of critics. There is the fear, for instance, that specimens kept in vicinity of other reptile species could contract a disease that upon their release would infect the wild population.

Dave Taylor, a headstarting coordinator who oversaw the first high school caretaking program as a teacher at Triton Regional High School in Byfield, added that there were also initial concerns that the artificial growth would impact the turtles' reproductive capabilities.

"We weren't sure if we were going to raise sterile turtles,'' he said, "and have it be a big waste of time.''

In 2000, however, MassWildlife documented the first wild nesting of a headstarting specimen, a 13-year-old, in 2000 (the cooters become able to breed around that age and live to as old as 70).

Another challenge is simply caring for the newborn turtles, which have a voracious appetite and, consequently, leave a lot of waste for caretakers to deal with.

"They defecate as much as they eat. The main challenge is keeping the tank clean,'' said Brian Moore of the National Marine Life Center in Buzzards Bay, which is in its second year in the headstarting program.

At Eagle Hill School, which has been a caretaker for three years, sophomore Matt Grinnell's duty is to make sure the turtles have clean water each week.

"At night I'll go up to the classroom, empty out the tank and scrub it,'' said Grinnell, who boards at the Hardwick school. "It's pretty gross.''

Overall, however, caring for the turtles, "isn't rocket science,'' French said. "They're pretty easy to take care of.''

Each year in fact he fields requests from individuals wishing to join the program who have no experience at all caring for turtles. Headstarting caretakers must meet a basic protocol set by MassWildlife.

The payoff is a generation of turtles that have a chance to make it in an otherwise dangerous environment. Were it not for MassWildlife's intervention, French believes the species, which has more stable populations along the southern East Coast, could have gone extinct in Massachusetts.

"They were showing signs they were headed that way,'' he said. "Basically, (headstarting) works.''

MetroWest Daily News

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